Friday, February 26, 2010

formspring.me: GD Oath of Silence

Do you think the GD oath of silence still applies in this day and age?

I'm going to answer this question by deliberately not answering it. So make of it what you will.

Instead I'm going to try and talk about the difference between Blogspot and Livejournal. What I've noticed is that LiveJournal users tend to post larger entries, and have more dedicated followings, than Blogspot seems to. It's always a relatively small group of people, but many of whom decide they really like what you have to say and mostly seem to enjoy getting more. Blogspot, on the other hand, seems to inspire shorter entries but with more detailed information in other ways. If I was to try and describe it Qabalistically, and I'll try, I'd say that LJ was more in tune with Yesod and Blogspot was more in tune with Hod. But maybe I'm just projecting because I've written more of one thing in one area, and more of another in another. And I think that's part of it.

But I also think that the format boils down to this... LJ has 'chunks' of areas, even with LJ cuts, and expands across a full format of the page for the most part. The basic Blogspot layouts, on the other hand, are more tightly pushed together. Rather than "lines," you have columns. This is closer to the columns of a newspaper, than it is the page of a journal. This means that more information is pressed together and the entry looks longer. As such there's a huge case of "Too Long; Didn't Read" on Blogspot that doesn't occur as frequently on LiveJournal.

This means people ignore more entries. This means they actually read entries a bit less. Perhaps I'm wrong, but this tells me that BlogSpot is an idea place to conceal certain bits of information. Like Handbooks of Lost Dreams, buried in a labrynth of otherwise obnoxious noise.

Even in plain sight, things hide themselves.* One of the things that Israel Regardie harped on was that one should be at least somewhat in tune with their surroundings.** If you're setting off everyone's alarms, then you're going to have conflict. Neighbors might break into your house looking for a stash of sacrificed babies, for example; this despite the fact that such things rarely, if ever, happen beyond the domain of the psychotically dangerous. Trying to stay in tune with your surroundings at least to a partial degree is absolutely necessary.

I've finally managed to be able to sit through an entire Church service without having to walk out. I figure in a few more months I'll be able to tune into their channel a bit better. And then I'll just move amongst the world like a silent shadow.

Back in the day I had a friend that insisted I did just that. By being obnoxious and loud and noisy, I was hiding most of my thoughts. People might like me, but most weren't going to hear what I had to say. Later, when I started doing odd bits in public like hunting for Genius Loci, I found it helped just to try and fade myself out of focus a bit. Mostly the homeless notice me. No being missed by them. They make it their business to see the movement of the streets better than most Suburbanites. You just drift. Aimlessly. Really. At least, that's what works for me. Right now. It'll hopefully change when I figure out how to make it always work.

*EDIT: And to demonstrate my example a bit better, Formspring users cannot see this edit. And many people have stopped reading by now. Therefore it is a convenient time for me to reveal the following information: Fire and Ice by Stephen Flowers is, in fact, still in print. If you happen to know what its subject matter was about, you may want to visit his personal printing press' website and buy a book about that exact same subject matter. Which may or may not be almost exactly the same book as Fire and Ice with perhaps a few added details. Don't let Llewellyn lie to you. This book is still out there. And it's very much worth the read. The letter, by the way, was attached to a lovely bit of Lovecraftian erotic art. I was given it when I was like, 23, by a friend. Hee.

**EDIT #2: Some of the most powerful magicians you will ever meet, some of the very best at what they do, are occasionally living just down the street. And you don't even know it right now. I don't just mean Santeros, either. I used to rave at my friends, “I know there's a powerful magician near by! I can feel it!”

They insisted I was crazy. One day he began emailing me. And then I met him. He lived just down the street.

1 comment:

I was a church kid (different denominations too) for the longest time and, of course, my care for it grew less and less over the years. Before I left, it got to be that I would play drums for the worship portion and then go out back to smoke with the pastor's son. Once college hit, I said, "Fuck that shit!" and I was out. College seemed like the best out since I lived away from home and I didn't have to be too concerned about scaring the shit out of my mom with my theories.

"J, I'm really concerned about where you're going to end up."

"Yeah, yeah. I know mom. That's for me to worry about."

I couple years later, I found myself back in church when I was trying to pick up this Baptist girl. (Note: Baptist churches are NOT the place to be picking up girls - crazy fuckers - my mother even thought so) I won over the girl, which I probably should have never attempted in the first time; totally ended in fire & brimstone. The sermons also made me physically ill.

So, it was like seven years until I ended up back in a church again. It wasn't for Sunday stuff though. I had decided to give their food services a whirl. My greatest concern was that something or someone was going to piss me off and I would storm out and without my food (which is partly why I had ignored Frater U.D.'s suggestion on attending church services). They were also evangelicals.

I found it to be an exercise in acting as I met charismatic speech with charismatic speech. At one point, I had even enthusiastically accepted a request to pray over me; carefully emphasizing key phrases in the prayer. I acted like I belonged there and like I've always been a member there. I wasn't trying to be an asshole either (this time). I just wanted to get in and get out without incident. And, so, when it comes down to the wire, I guess I can behave myself.